He_162

Looks like I've got a new project. Time to get into SSTO's.

Nice looking car by the way!

I'll restart work on the 7000 ton lifter, the upscaled 3000 ton lifter has caused it to be really poorly designed, not only in structural stability, but in efficiency Stats: -14% weight to orbit vs 34% -2100 funds per ton vs 7 funds per ton I think I'll proclaim myself master of efficient lifters at this point.

To keep the cost per ton below 7 funds, I didn't add nosecones, but if you want to add them, go ahead! With lifters this large, you don't need to worry much about aerodynamics, because any efforts at increasing it's aerodynamics are lost in the increase in weight and cost of the rocket, forcing you to build it larger, and thus use more engines, which cost lots of $$$. So to keep costs low, and efficiency high, I did not use nosecones.

I would agree, I don't think people do much looking into percentage of weight to orbit as a measure of efficiency. Azimech is not correct, it's actually 1.3.0, but i'll see if it works in 1.3.1. 0.0.1 off, sir! I think I have finalized the OP, it states what it needs to, and showcases my rocket well enough now, I'll work on a better "look" for my future craft uploads here, and by better look, I mean I want to make it easy to read and sum up what my stuff is about in a few short bullets.

Houston: "Why is the transmission so slow?" *KSP music playing* Houston: "And who's playing that music?"

I upscaled my 3000 ton lifter to be capable of taking 7000 tons to orbit... Let's just say autostruts aren't enough for craft this large sometimes.

I didn't add nosecones to keep the total weight down, and keep the costs low. AS a result, it takes 34% of it's weight to orbit, and costs 6.7 kerbucks per ton to launch, provided you fit 3000 tons of cargo on there. This is a very incredible craft, that has taken me over a year to complete.

Thanks! It took a little while, and I had a lot of difficulties, but I think I can scale this down to create multiple smaller, more efficient rockets as well, or I could scale it up to possible become reusable!

That's not "too many" but it is a lot. I have a VERY powerful computer, and it'll be upgraded soon as well.

All I'd have to do to beat you is launch 3000 tons of ION into orbit

I just posted one

The largest lifter I have made to date (in terms of payload) but the smallest lifter I have made to take more than 1000 tons to orbit (in terms of part count) <700 parts (with dummy cargo) (648 parts) >17% weight to orbit <7 kerbucks per ton (cheapest $/ton of any rocket on KerbalX that doesn't use asparagus staging) If anyone designs a "engine" stage for the fuel tank that serves as a dummy payload, you can do a grand tour with this. ~Payload and first stage were modified (original had 3 stages, this version has two stages, this is due to a corruption of my craft files, that caused me to have to rebuild the entire rocket from scratch, hence the delay in the release of my 1,500 ton, and 3000 ton lifters.) I apologize for this delay, it has taken me half a year to learn the proper game mechanics to develop this rocket, and I am proud to show it to you guys! Just keep in mind what you see in the pictures is only very slightly different from the actual rocket (taller dummy cargo, and only two stages vs 3 (some outer engine clusters are detachable in the previous version, but I didn't see more than a 1% increase in efficiency, so I just got rid of it to lower part count), so it's not noticeably different.)

That 3000 ton lifter I made (the craft file got corrupted) has been successfully rebuilt and uploaded to kerbalX, so for my critics, you can actually launch it yourself! (I also got it down to 644 parts, making it the lowest part count lifter to take more than 1000 tons to orbit!) https://kerbalx.com/He_162/He3000-ton-lifter

My smallest "mega lifter" takes 1,500 tons to orbit, and it's capable of taking most "Jool 5" mission's entire rocket boosters to orbit.

I launched a rocket that was a total of around 15,000 tons (currently rebuilding it for the latest KSP version before release) It takes 3000 tons to an 80km orbit. https://imgur.com/a/k7nqB

I have yet to find a way for it to spawn on the launchpad without breaking it, and no amount of launch clamps (even 1,136 clamps) could keep it still enough to prevent some fuel tanks from breaking off of the design, so I am hard at work looking for new ways of spawning in my craft that prevent it from taking damage, or destroying the launchpad and itself in the process. Until then, I'll continue work on my efficient 3000 ton (to mun orbit) lifter.

I find it much harder to develop a structurally stable craft in stock than it is to develop craft that make it to orbit and stay there in RO. I do enjoy it for the realism, I hate it for the surplus parts that make it easy to create monstrous unrealistic rockets without much thought.

Realism overhaul was easy, so I settled for high part count, 1FPS launches in KSP that require extreme levels of structural stability knowledge of KSP physics, and that is much harder to determine, and execute than any launch in realism overhaul. Yes, I understand this thread is for RO rockets, but there is nothing wrong with quoting a few specs from the stock game for reference to how much easier it is to run RO.

I have a stock lifter that can take 3000 tons to LKO (and with a booster module I made, it can take it to the MUN orbit).

I like that idea! I usually (made a habit out of this) hit the save button after modifying, or adding any single part (provided I decided I like the idea) and save it with a different name when I do so, v0.4, v0.5, etc, just to have a backup. I'll be moving backups into a folder on my desktop for safety now. Thanks!

I'm gonna follow this!

Sounds fun, so here are a few questions: -How do I submit a rocket for one of these missions? -Are we launching your payloads, or designing our own?

Sorry to hear that! Something similar happened to me when I was working on my DeLorean, which I had several backups of at the time, I guess I was lucky!

I have finally had the time to record this hour long launch and return! Oh, and I condensed it into a 4 minute video for you guys to watch in the OP, thanks for all the likes / views, it was fun to build, and I plan on keeping it updated for the latest KSP version for a while!